Manufactures of hand held devices, including those of mobile communication devices, are increasingly adding functionality to their devices. For example, many mobile communication devices shipped today include cameras. Image capturing devices, such as still and video digital cameras, are being increasingly incorporated into handheld devices such as wireless communication devices. Handheld device manufacturers, such as mobile communication device manufacturers, can incorporate both still and video digital cameras in one device. Users may capture still and video digital images on their wireless communication devices and transmit a file to a recipient. As advancements are being made in a variety of fields of technology including in image capturing devices, new and improved features are steadily being incorporated into cameras of mobile communication devices.
While there is a trend toward the inclusion of more features and improvements for current features, there is also a trend toward smaller mobile communication devices. As mobile communication device technology has continued to improve, the devices have become increasingly smaller. Fewer and/or smaller hardware and software components are therefore desirable when adding new features and making improvements to the current features in the smaller devices. Fewer hardware components may provide a cost benefit to the consumer.
In a mobile communication device the still and video cameras may point in opposite directions from the device. That is, a video camera for video conferencing may be on the same surface as a display and a keypad including navigation input keys, and therefore may point in the direction of the user while the user views the display. The still camera may point away from the back side of the device. In this manner, when taking a still photograph, the user may view on the display a digitally reproduced image of the user's object, much like the view screen of a digital camera. In a mobile communication device the still and video cameras may point in opposite directions from the device.
It is common that both still and video image sequences are affected by unwanted motion. In particular, hand-shaking introduces undesired motion in still photos and in video captured with cameras incorporated into handheld devices such as cellular telephones. Other causes of unwanted motion can include vibrations, fluctuations or micro-oscillations of the image capturing device.
Both video and still cameras can have motion detecting hardware such as an accelerometer. They also can have motion correction applications to correct for motion of the image of a still camera or to correct for motion of image sequences of a video camera. In a handheld device having a still camera and video camera, it would be beneficial to reduce the number of components required for motion detection and correction in the still camera. In particular, it may be beneficial to improve the speed of the motion correction in a still camera of a handheld device.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.